Figures Don’t Lie, But Liars Do Figure (Trump thread #114)

[TheNorthWestPawsage]

Enough already! Delusional, depraved, but DEFEATED. We may have to wait until Jan 20th but 45 will be GONE. McConnell is next...

Previous thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4076183-Donald-has-barricaded-himself-in-the-WH-and-we-have-Georgia-on-our-minds-Trump-thread-113

@SugarbabyMilly

So we can expect a tweet from Trump soon saying what a waste of space Christie is, and Trump never rated him?

Yes and he'll probably also say that nobody has heard of Christie until he met Trump 😂

Nah, that no one has ever heard of Christie and that he, Scrotus, has no idea of who he is and has never met him. 🙄

You know, the usual.

Sidney Powell's fall from grace might be because McConnell and mates are possibly a tad miffed that she has now included Loeffler in her woo accusations of election fraud. GOP need both Georgia senate seats.

I’m seeing that Trump is flogging $50 tickets to a Trump Rose Garden inauguration?

I cannot work out if that’s real and he’s planning a side gig?

www.newsweek.com/trump-dumps-sydney-powell-lawyer-who-promised-blow-georgia-legal-strategy-unravels-1549369?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1606090156

@Phoenix21

I’m seeing that Trump is flogging $50 tickets to a Trump Rose Garden inauguration?

I cannot work out if that’s real and he’s planning a side gig?

What?

As in he's going to have his own inauguration?

Is there a link anywhere?

The survey at the end of the Newsweek article is very interesting, alhough it's made up of Newsweek readers

It's still not clear but it appears that there is not a falling out in Trump legal team, more that they are splitting their attack.

I'll admit, Sidney Powell rebranding from #releasethekraken (bonkers) to #WeThePeople (patriotic) is brilliant marketing.
Any attack from media on Powell's theories can now be defended as an attack on #WeThePeople ie the Constitution

I don’t think it’s real as I cannot find a good source.

twitter.com/stephrosenstein/status/1330670643050913793?s=21

[quote Phoenix21]I don’t think it’s real as I cannot find a good source.

twitter.com/stephrosenstein/status/1330670643050913793?s=21[/quote]
Definitely fake. There's someone on twitter who signed up to receive emails from Trump Campaign, she has been getting an average of 22, yes 22, emails per day since 3rd November but this is not one of them.
It's really funny though!

Carl Bernstein
@carlbernstein

'I'm not violating any pledge of journalistic confidentially in reporting this: 21 Republican Sens–in convos w/ colleagues, staff members, lobbyists, W. House aides–have repeatedly expressed extreme contempt for Trump & his fitness to be POTUS.'

'The 21 GOP Senators who have privately expressed their disdain for Trump are: Portman, Alexander, Sasse, Blunt, Collins, Murkowski, Cornyn, Thune, Romney, Braun, Young, Tim Scott, Rick Scott, Rubio, Grassley, Burr, Toomey, McSally, Moran, Roberts, Shelby.'

'With few exceptions, their craven public silence has helped enable Trump’s most grievous conduct—including undermining and discrediting the US the electoral system.'

Meet the future Secretary of State, Tony Blinken

twitter.com/mimirose101/status/1330679300014682112?s=21

'I am cute and fuzzy and blue.'

@showmethegin

Slightly off topic but I still cannot believe that members of the Supreme Court are presidentially elected. As the highest court in the land it astounds me that it's appointments have anything to do with politics. By definition surely those judges should be completely neutral (as it is possible for a human being to be).

They aren't presidentially elected, but nominated. Congress also gets to vote. The idea was that with a lifetime sinecure a supreme can act as a stabilising influence and prevent legal judgements being too "of the moment".

And their power only comes in the areas of the constitution that are open to interpretation.

More Bernstein:

www.rawstory.com/2020/11/newsman-carl-bernstein-weve-never-seen-this-kind-of-destruction-by-a-president-bordering-on-seditious/

A thing which has been occurring to me with increasing force is that one very simple way to improve the American electoral system would be to alter the way results are announced.

Most of the madness this time round has been because Trumpists saw the early counts and thought they were the results, not realising that until the counts from mail-in voting were completed as well the half-way results didn't, well, count. Because they only saw their own ballots, they thought they had won, and then thought they had been robbed when the rest were also included.

If no interim results were published, only the final ones, it would save a lot of troubled minds.

Today is certification day for Michigan and Pennsylvania.

@AccrossthePond55

Sorry to be a numpty, but what's that? When they declare their results?

Greg Sargent @ThePlumLineGS

White House staffers are avoiding Trump as he stews with rage over their failure to come up with more ways to try to steal the election, AP reports.

Trump has been "angrily demanding answers from aides as to how to further contest the election."

apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-delaware-elections-f74531f2b858f6d8dd20f2800d545109?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP_Politics

Funny that they haven't mentioned anything about North Carolina, where counting went on for days afterwards and was settled in Trump's favour, and if they hadn't noticed Biden's lead in Arizona narrowed. I know there was more bother in AZ though - has anything happened there?

I don't understand how they've hit on Michigan as a target? Biden won by nearly 200K votes there. Is it that they think officials there are more pliable?

There is a flat earther (aka Trump supporter, although British) on one of the What's App groups I'm in. This is an intelligent person, it's a quiz group (I don't even care how outing this is.) I can't believe I know someone - as a friend, as opposed to family whom you're born with - who thinks that Sidney Powell has been disrespected by the press and there might be something to what she is saying. WTF. I don't even care anymore, I done done done with trying to see the other side. I am finished. I am sick of these people, reading their messages and listening to their bullshit is actually starting to make me physically sick too.

AcrossthePond55 - does certification mean it's a done deal for the respective elector of that state come 14 December when the electoral college votes? Is it still possible for the electors to vote against the certified results?

I know the question may seem ridiculous given that I'm probably asking you to apply the known norms when the situation is anything but normal

I watched that Hope Not Hate seminar, "Learning from Biden 2020" Combatting Disinformation" the other night and it was very good. Some of it is very pertinent right now.

Here's the link for the whole discussion, lasting 1 hour 20 mins:
www.facebook.com/hope.n.hate/videos/learning-from-biden-2020-combating-disinformation/822143725248185/?so=permalink&rv=related_videos

My big takeaway was: "Don't treat the hit, treat the wound."

IIRC they said:

– Repeating an attack in order to rebut it, amplifies the attack.

– Fact-checking has very little impact on people's perception after they've seen the attack.

– Telling people outright that their strongly held belief is wrong is useless (worse than useless?).

– What really works is to expose people to material which treats the psychological impression the attack has created. So for example, if the attack claims – overtly or subconsciously – that "Biden is sick and has cognitive issues," then the treatment is to show images of Biden looking fit and perky and coherent. Don't mention the attack while doing this: just do it and let people form their own opinion.

The Biden team were at pains to point out that they had not cured disinformation in the US. Their aim in this instance was solely to prevent disinformation turning the 2020 election for Trump. As such, they ignored swathes of Ever Trumpies and focused attention on potential swing voters or those who might be suppressed. They identified when attacks came in, which group had received the attack material, and attempted to inoculate that specific group with treatment material.

Most of the madness this time round has been because Trumpists saw the early counts and thought they were the results, not realising that until the counts from mail-in voting were completed as well the half-way results didn't, well, count.

I respectfully disagree. You are dealing with people who are acting as if they are possessed - or following a religion.

Even if Donald Trump were to go on national TV now, and concede, you would have a non trivial number of people who would say it was fake news. It was a deepfake. It was a lookalike. The real Donald Trump had been killed and replaced by a robot clone produced by China.

And so on.

There is a certain level of stupid below which you simply cannot go. The problem is these people have votes ....

We've talked about some of these issues on these threads before, of course. Particularly the fact that rebutting a lie amplifies the lie.

And I think we went back to Hannah Arendt or another writer about 1930s Germany on the topic of fact-checking being a hopeless strategy against an opponent who has their listeners by the short and curlies emotions.